Defending the Right of - Muslim - Students

A briefing on the issue of forced gender segregation on university campuses has created a considerable amount of controversy. Last week, Student Rights published a report that in the last 12 months alone, there were more than 40 events held by student societies on UK university campuses with a gender segregated seating order.

Naturally, one could speculate that UCL is an isolated and extreme case, and hopefully it is. But Student Rights' research shows that it is not. By any measure and sampling technique, 40 events with non-voluntary gender segregation are 40 events too many. But instead of taking these alarming numbers seriously, attempts are made to conflate the criticism of Islamic Student Societies with "demonising Muslims students". This is dubious, as not Muslims, but Islamic Student Societies are criticised. And arguably, these represent only a minority of Muslim students: FOSIS, the umbrella organisation of Islamic Student Societies represents only a fraction of Muslim UK students.

Others claim that gender segregation "is an inherent aspect of the lifestyle of Muslim communities, a core Islamic value", and thus by conclusion, all Muslims would want to segregate. Shockingly, this stereotyping of Muslims as a uniform bloc is very similar to "painting a monolithic picture of Muslims" that is so viciously promoted by the anti-Muslim right, but rightfully deplored by the same who then advocate segregation. Of course, this depiction flies in the face of reality, as many prominent Muslims like Myriam Francois-Cerrah or Adam Deen have clarified that gender segregation in public places is neither sanctioned by the Qur'an nor the Hadiths and that in fact the majority of faithful Muslims do not adhere to gender segregation in their lives.

Thus, while some of the criticism of the briefing is understandable, ignoring and belittling a problem that should be of great concern to those that pledge to defend the rights of students is not. Tellingly, no one has spoken up to condemn the fact that there is a great number of Muslim and non-Muslim students who have been forced to comply with a gender segregated seating order on campus, whether they agreed with it or not. Student organisations and universities have a duty of care towards students and should not buy into the narrative that the reputational protection of imposing fringe groups is more important than the welfare of students.

As campuses already are unfortunate places of the reproduction of race and class segregation, universities and student unions should step up to defend the rights of Muslims and those who are working to make university campuses less segregated and more inclusive. For those who still want to exercise their right to self-segregate despite of that; they should do so, but without imposing segregation on others.